The many small murals painted on a low wall in Oceanside’s Artist Alley change from time to time. The alley is like a living thing!
I was told by a shopkeeper that some of the murals you see in today’s photos were painted during the recent holidays. Other artwork was created early this year.
Oceanside’s unique Artist Alley is located directly south of the city library and civic center, on the other side of Pier View Way. It’s the home of many cool, artsy specialty shops.
If you’d like to learn more about Artist Alley, and see how this wall of murals appeared four years ago, click here.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
The sun had risen above a distant hill. The morning air was warming. Buena Vista Lagoon, separating coastal Carlsbad from Oceanside, was alive with light and life.
This time the looping trail was flooded in at least one spot, so my adventure was a very short there-and-back. But just as peaceful and beautiful as before.
This small walk was part of a much longer, meandering walk today, from the Carlsbad train station to the Oceanside Civic Center. I had the day off from work.
I’ve captured so many photographs from my long walk that Cool San Diego Sights will be including wonderful North County discoveries (including art, historic buildings, and another nature walk) for the next week or two.
To get things started…
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
This very colorful new mural was painted a couple months ago on the north side of the Oceanside Transit Center parking structure. It celebrates Oceanside–its Spanish mission and fishing history, and the nearby Pacific Ocean!
Jonny Pucci created the striking mural. See his Instagram page here.
According to this article, the work is part of MainStreet Oceanside’s Art that Excites program, which aims to install up to 10 murals in public spaces throughout downtown Oceanside.
I love how so many Southern California cities and communities continue to enliven neighborhoods and destinations with public art. No matter where I walk, I always seem to encounter something new. That was certainly the case yesterday!
Next time I walk in Oceanside, I have no doubt I’ll stumble upon more cool sights like this. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more outdoor art that I also discovered yesterday–in Escondido!
Enjoy a few more photos of the Oceanside Transit Center parking garage mural…
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Did one of the Planet of the Apes movies have a Santa Claus? He seems to have turned up in Oceanside, California!
It’s the holiday season! Have fun checking out some photographs that I took during a walk around downtown Oceanside today!
The above Santa gone ape was in a window at Goblin Shark Emporium.
Next, a couple festive photos taken on the Amtrak train platform at the Oceanside Transit Center…
A fun Happy Holidays street banner I noticed while walking up Coast Highway…
Shelves full of Season’s Greetings, gnomes and lighthouses inside Jane & Evie’s Used Book Store…
Merry Christmas decorations by a street corner…
Now I’ve entered the Oceanside Civic Center Library, where, as you’ll see, dinosaurs and the holidays seem to go very well together…
Window graphics include ornaments at the entrance to the Oceanside Museum of Art…
Need some artsy presents for Christmas? You definitely should check out the gift shop at the Oceanside Museum of Art. They’ve got lots of beautiful handmade gifts for sale…
Back outside, in the nearby Artist Alley, local Oceanside businesses were selling holiday crafts and wares. Today is Small Business Saturday! Santa would arrive later in the afternoon…
Do you plan to spend some time in Oceanside this holiday season? Read the following sign for special events. Or visit this website!
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Look what’s coming next Saturday, December 7th in Oceanside! A big, holiday craft and book sale that benefits the Oceanside Public Library!
Need some special Christmas gifts? From 10 am to 4 pm, the Civic Center Library’s community rooms and courtyard will be bursting with hand-crafted items for sale that were donated by volunteers and library staff. And there will be hundreds of books and DVDs for a mere $1 each!
There will also be a silent auction for a local Airbnb stay and much more, all donated by local Oceanside businesses!
Finish up your holiday shopping in one easy trip! (And, while you’re there, check out the library’s dinosaur Christmas tree and other super fun decorations!)
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Irving Gill was an American architect who did most of his work in Southern California, especially in San Diego and Los Angeles. He is considered a pioneer of the modern movement in architecture.
When I visited Oceanside a little over a month ago, I photographed Irving Gill’s final project: the 1936 Blade Tribune building. Let me share those photos now!
If you’d like to read a great article concerning the history of the now defunct Oceanside Blade-Tribune newspaper, click here.
The 1936 Irving Gill building you see in these photos, at 401 Seagaze Drive, was built to accommodate a newly created Oceanside Daily Blade Tribune and News. The unique building with an Art Deco façade was restored in 2019 and today is home to the Blade 1936 Italian restaurant!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
A beach scene mural that shows the Oceanside Pier, a woodie and three girls with a surfboard on the sand has appeared in downtown Oceanside. You can view it on the parking lot side of Finney’s Crafthouse restaurant. Postcard-like words read: Greetings From OCEANSIDE.
The artist is Jerry Ragg. The mural was painted in 2024 in memory of JT Ragg.
I spotted the cool artwork during my weekend walk in Oceanside and took these photographs into the sun. Consequently, I had to increase the contrast of each image quite a bit.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Are you old enough to remember the golden age of surf culture? You know–those years when the radio was filled with pop music by The Ventures, Jan and Dean, and The Beach Boys. Back when surfing movies were on the marquee of your local theater, and Gidget was a popular show on television.
If you love nostalgia, the California Surf Museum has a really great exhibit that might tickle your fancy. It might also bring back memories. Star, Cars and Guitars – The Birth of the Modern Surf Era: 1958 to 1965 features photographs, posters, rare artifacts and memorabilia from those days when the surfing subculture sprang forth and quickly took center stage in the popular culture.
I visited the California Surf Museum last Saturday and enjoyed looking at the extensive display.
This era came right before I was born, but in my youth echoes of it still lingered on the radio and on television. I remember I had the incredible Endless Summer album by The Beach Boys which I loved to hear on my scratchy record player. Yes, that was a long time ago!
(How many San Diego area locations are mentioned in The Beach Boys hit song Surfin’ U.S.A.? Well, let’s see: Del Mar, Trestles, Swami’s, San Onofre, and La Jolla!)
The museum exhibit covers those golden days when surfing’s popularity exploded across California, the U.S.A. and the world, including the era’s trailblazers and athletes, surfboards, fashion, cars, popular surf spots and early surfing competitions.
Honestly, all of the exhibits in this one-of-a-kind museum are cool. If you live in Southern California and you’re at all into surfing or the lifestyle, and you haven’t visited the California Surf Museum, you’re really missing out!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Visitors to the Oceanside Museum of Art might have their view of the world suddenly disrupted! Nearly fifty paintings by Southern California artists challenge the way we view familiar things. The exhibition is titled More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux.
Flux is defined as the action or process of flowing. Flowing implies change, movement. These paintings are full of dynamism, drawing the viewer in with bold strokes and color, exciting curiosity with abstraction that can be strangely fluid.
The surprising art reveals unexpected contrasts and inner mystery. In the age of social media, where images flash by on a phone with the flick of a finger, these paintings might cause one to stand for a minute and consider.
The pieces chosen for display were selected from over 1,700 entries. As one sign explains: The concept for this juried exhibition was to present outstanding paintings by Southern California artists that showed signs of being disrupted, either formally or thematically. Disruption, in this framework, means that the forces of contemporary life and existence somehow altered or affected the way the work was created and challenged the norms of representation…
A very friendly museum docent struck up a conversation with me and shared some of her favorite pieces. She was amazed that one of the pieces, exuding youthful hipness, was painted by an 80-year-old artist. But that’s the limitless potential of human creativity!
By disrupting familiar things, reshaping what we know, our minds and hands can bring to existence anything that we imagine. We can change this old world–enlarge it–even make life more meaningful.
More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux will be on view at the Oceanside Museum of Art through September 15, 2024.
I can tell you this art is certainly not dull! My photographs provide a few examples.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
The city of Oceanside is very lucky to have such a wonderful used book store. Jane and Evie’s Used Books is where you want to shop if you love to read, watch movies, listen to music . . . or solve jigsaw puzzles or view walls filled with art!
Whenever I’m in Oceanside I like to drop by, simply to look around and possibly add to my collection of books and digital media, including CDs and DVDs. That’s what I did today!
A cool thing about shopping at Jane and Evie’s Used Books is that all of the sales benefit The Friends of the Oceanside Public Library. When you enjoy a purchased book, others might enjoy a library book, too!
The store’s volunteers are all super friendly!
I asked about the history of the bookstore and was shown a photo of Evie Magana and Jane Cheadle, who were early members and officers of The Friends of the Oceanside Public Library. They were both known for their love of books and their dedication to the Oceanside community. The bookstore was named in their honor.
Unlike certain used book stores, it’s spacious and very well organized. Like a library! Linger, peruse the shelves, and talk to friendly people!
Jane and Evie’s Used Books is located at 323 North Coast Highway. Hours are Monday through Wednesday 11 am – 3 pm; Thursday through Saturday 10 am – 6 pm.
Procrastireading: The Art of Reading, instead of doing whatever else it is you should be doing.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Cool San Diego Sights! 